Sunday, October 7, 2007

Comment Moderation

We have enabled comment moderation, so please be patient if your post does not appear immediately. With the end of the South Dakota Diocesan Convention and an information initiative by the American Anglican Council chapter, we want to make sure that discussion and debate are conducted without name calling, personal attacks or other unhelpful behaviors.

5 comments:

I will begin with a positive comment about the convention. All money/offerings received at the convention services is being sent to the Sudanese to aid in the building of a school. A true example of Christ.

But I still believe that giving to the national church is a waste of precious resources at this time. Why in the world that is a diocesan budget priority is beyond me...or did the convention make some healthy changes to the draft budget?

Why in the world that is a diocesan budget priority is beyond me.Maybe... because Holy Apostles in Sioux Falls hosts a Sudanese worship community. So folks in the Diocese have some awareness of their story and their specific needs.

Some of the leaders of the Sudanese community came to Convention and had a booth there with information about relief efforts in Sudan. Personally I was touched that the Sudanese are working so hard to help the folks "back home" when they are also working hard to make it themselves as new immigrants, mostly as low-wage workers in Sioux Falls.

cp - you misunderstood my comment. I agreed with Dan - the gift to the Sudanese community was a positive act.

My criticism is of the national church as a budget priority. Their own Episcopal Church Foundation calls national leadership "incoherent." Their own congregational development people admit to "precipitous" losses and "systemic decline."

Yet they have a million bucks (according to Bob Williams, one of their media people) to sue people. The allow an "Executive Council" to affiliate the denomination with abortion advocacy. They... never mind, I blog about this stuff in detail often enough.

By any measure that is not biased by ideology or the needs of a particular interest group, the national leadership of TEC is a massive failure. When an organization is measurably shrinking and has significant internal conflict. its leaders should be held accountable. TEC's leaders simply say, "Give us more money." And sadly, well meaning people are fleeced.

We all recognize when televangelists make ridiculous claims to take money from their viewers. TEC's leadership is no better.